


Just a Spoonful of Sugar (can somehow end up scattered across the entire kitchen)

by CaptainAwesome242



Series: Iron Dad Bingo Prompts [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Babysitting, Baking, Cookies, Fluff, Gen, Iron Family, Irondad Bingo 2019, Precious Peter Parker, Sibling Bonding, Timeline What Timeline, Tony Stark Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 09:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20095387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAwesome242/pseuds/CaptainAwesome242
Summary: Prompt - Canon divergence - No Infinity War/ EndgameWhen Peter visited the Stark cabin every other weekend there was always a batch of something freshly baked in the Spider-Man cookie tin, be it cookies, brownies or cupcakes. Pepper told him how Morgan loved to bake, especially for him, and insisted on doing most of the work herself. Supervised, of course, but most of the heavy lifting was reportedly done by Morgan’s own hands.In light of this information, he’d assumed she’d be better getting the ingredients into the bowl...





	Just a Spoonful of Sugar (can somehow end up scattered across the entire kitchen)

**Author's Note:**

> This is more of an Iron Family fic than an Iron Dad one but ehh
> 
> I have no idea how old Morgan is in this - I did a google search that basically said all kids develop at different paces so I’ll leave it up to you guys how you envision her
> 
> Title is a play on A Spoonful of Sugar from Mary Poppins

“If anything happens—"

“Then Peter will deal with it because he’s sensible and he’s Spider-Man and nothing is going to happen,” 

Tony looked put out at being interrupted but Pepper only gave him a fond, if very pointed look before continuing, “And besides, Peter has watched Morgan plenty of times before,”

“Yeah, but not for this long before,” Tony qualified, feeling justified in his concern.

“I don’t know if I should be offended by your lack of faith in me or daunted by this seemingly impossible task,” said Peter, who up until now had been engrossed in playing race cars with the toddler in question. He sounded neither daunted nor offended, but that was probably because he was neither - he was actually looking forward to spending some one-on-one time with his baby sister. 

“You should be offended,” Pepper said sweetly, “but what Tony is trying to say is if you do have any problems, which you won’t, then call us. Okay?”

“I will,” Peter said, smiling brightly before turning to Morgan, “we’ll have lots of fun, won’t we Morganite?”

“Yeah! Yeah! Fun with Petey!” Morgan cheered, shoving more cars into his hands in an attempt to get him to focus on the game. 

“Yeah!” Peter cheered, struggling with the cars until they clattered to the wooden floor. 

Had they been in Tony’s pristine lab back in the compound Peter would have been stressing about any dents the toys might have left, but not here in their cosy wood cabin. He had been worried at first when the cabin was freshly built, and he was helping to get their furniture into the small space. Peter had been so worried about scuffing the walls that he’d accidentally taken a chip out of the doorway with the foot of the couch he was carrying. 

He’d apologised profusely but Tony had only shrugged, saying, “Eh, it gives the place character,”

Peter hadn’t been convinced, but many more dinks and bumps had been made since then, mostly by Tony himself, who really didn’t seem to mind. Peter relaxed slightly more after that, not that he was trying to damage the place, but when little accidents happened he didn’t worry too much. Besides, he loved the warm feeling he got in his chest when he noticed Tony’s hand reaching for the doorframe every time he walked through it, fingers lingering on the little chip. 

So a few tiny dents in the floor made by a handful of cars really wasn’t worth worrying about. 

Morgan giggled excitedly at the loud noise and Tony rolled his eyes fondly.

“Alright, we’re off then, try not to have too much fun without me,” he said, wandering over to crouch before Morgan, “give daddy a kiss,”

Morgan shoved all the cars off her lap as she stood, wrapping her arms around Tony’s neck kissing him loudly on the cheek. 

“Love you, daddy!” Morgan exclaimed before rushing over to do the same to Pepper who, much to Peter’s constant astonishment, was easily able to crouch down despite her killer heels, “Love you, mommy!”

Pepper kissed Morgan’s cheek before straightening up, “Love you too, baby. Now, you be a good girl for Peter, okay?”

Morgan nodded, “Promise,”

“Alright then, we’ll see you at dinner time, okay?” Tony said, ruffling Peter’s hair as he passed, “and if anything happens—“

“—Goodbye guys! Have fun!” Pepper looped her arm through Tony’s and dragged him to the door, but not before the man mimed  _call me_ to Peter. 

“We will!” Peter called, “Enjoy your meeting!”

The door shut, and Peter listened as the car drove away until his enhanced hearing could no longer pick it out. 

“Alright, Morganite, what do you wanna do?” Peter asked cheerfully, and was answered with a small blue car thrust into his hands. 

“This one’s you,” Morgan instructed, “and this one is me,”

They played cars for a while, racing them across the floors and along the furniture, up and down the stairs and even down to the lake and back. The child seemed to have a bottomless reservoir of energy. Peter often teased Tony for being old and tiring easily, but he now suspected it was only his own super strength and endurance that allowed him to keep up. 

Eventually though, Morgan grew tired of the game and Peter made sure all of the cars were tidied away before asking what she wanted to do next. 

“Bake cookies!” Morgan announced, throwing her arms up excitedly. 

“Great idea!” said Peter. Pepper and Morgan always made the best cookies and Peter had been dying to get his hands on the recipe to try it out. 

As Morgan retrieved a small purple apron from a low hook Peter searched the kitchen for a cookbook or a handwritten recipe of some kind, but came up empty. 

“Petey help me!” said Morgan, waving the apron at him like a flag.

Peter smiled, taking it from her and helping her into it, “Hey, do you know where your mommy keeps her recipe books?”

“Mommy doesn’t have books, she keeps it in her head. She’s very clever!” Morgan beamed proudly.

Figures , thought Peter, but out loud he said, “Yeah, she’s so smart! Guess we’ll do it the old fashioned way,”

He pulled out his phone and searched the internet for a cookie recipe, filtering through until he found one he was happy with. Meanwhile, Morgan had dragged a step stool noisily across the floor and climbed up to reach the counter. 

“I’m the chef,” she told him as he propped his phone where he could see it, “but you can do helping, ‘kay Petey?”

“Yes chef!” said Peter, snapping off a dramatic salute to make the girl laugh, “Now, let’s wash our hands before we start, got to make sure we’re all nice and clean. Remember the song?”

“Yeah!” Morgan cheered and they sang together;

_“Wash, wash, wash your hands,_

_Soap will make them clean,_

_Scrub the germs til they fall off,_

_Germs go down the drain,”_

While Morgan dried her hands and sang the song again, Peter gathered the necessary ingredients and equipment together, but couldn’t for the life of him find the scales. 

“Hey, Morgan, do you know where mommy keeps the scales?”

“What’s scales?” Morgan asked, her face scrunching adorably into a frown.

“It’s, ahh, its a little box you put things onto to find out how heavy they are,” Peter explained.

Morgan’s eyes lit up, “There’s one of those in the bathroom! Daddy was standing on it the other day,”

Peter laughed, filing that tidbit away, “You’re right! But we need a smaller one to measure the ingredients with,”

“Mommy doesn’t use scales, she uses cups,” Morgan supplied.

Peter was momentarily surprised before he shook his head; he’s so used to working in a lab with chemicals that it didn’t occur to him to measure any other way. May never measures anything when she cooks (and if Peter’s honest that would explain a lot), but now days off sick watching the cooking network are flooding back to him. 

“Of course, how silly of me! You’re absolutely right. Let’s get you a cup,”

“SpongeBob!” Morgan declared, pointing to her ‘special’ cup. She only drank from her collection of cartoon character cups, and the SpongeBob one was her favourite.

Peter picked the small plastic cup from the shelf and gave it an evaluating look, “I don’t know, Morganite, I think we’re supposed to use a bigger cup than this,”

“SpongeBob!” Morgan insisted, bottom lip threatening to pout.

“Okay!” Peter caved immediately. He was formidable against thugs and thieves but the second that bottom lip wobbled he was done for, “we’ll use the SpongeBob one. We can just double the amounts, right?”

“Yeah!” Morgan agreed immediately, not understanding what Peter was talking about but as long as she got to use her cup she didn’t care.

“Okay, so, the recipe says two and a quarter cups of flour, so let’s do four and a half,” Peter said, handing her the cup.

When Peter visited the Stark cabin every other weekend there was always a batch of freshly baked something in the Spider-Man cookie tin, be it cookies, brownies or cupcakes. Pepper told him how Morgan loved to bake, especially for him, and insisted on doing most of the work herself. Supervised, of course, but most of the heavy lifting was reportedly done by Morgan’s own hands.

In light of this information, he’d assumed she’d be better getting the ingredients into the bowl.

“Four,” Morgan counted carefully. Despite upturning her cup over the mixing bowl, very little of the flour actually went into it. By now, most of the countertop had a fine layer of white powder over it, piled higher in the areas around the bowl.

Peter had tried to help, but all of his attempts were met with cries of “I’m the chef!” so he simply stood back to watch. 

Morgan shook the cup over the bowl, determined to get every last bit of powder out before dropping it to the counter, satisfied. 

“All done!” She said, rubbing her hands together to get rid of any whiteness. 

“Great job!” Peter said encouragingly, “why don’t you go wipe your hands off before we start the next part?”

“Okay!” Morgan agreed, hopping down from the stool and over to grab the dishrag. 

Making sure she was otherwise distracted, Peter took the bowl and held it by the counter, sweeping the stray mounds of flour into it with his hand before carefully putting it back. 

Morgan didn’t seem to notice as she climbed back up onto the stool and asked, “What’s next?”

Peter made a show of consulting the recipe before answering, “Next is baking soda and salt, but only a tiny bit,” 

“I can do it!” Morgan reached for her SpongeBob cup.

“No, no, it’s only the tiniest amount, just with your fingers,” he popped the lid of the baking soda and demonstrated, “like this,”

Morgan watched with rapt attention before replicating. Well, attempting to replicate; very little of the baking soda went into the bowl and a little too much of the salt spilled in. Peter grimaced, these cookies weren’t going to be a match for how they came out when Pepper supervised, but at least the girl was having fun. 

“What’s next, Petey?”

“Let’s see...” Peter scanned through his phone, “we need a new bowl, and we’re going to put the butter and sugar into it,”

He grabbed a blue, polka dot bowl from the cupboard and placed it in front of Morgan, sliding the open jar of sugar towards her. 

“It says the butter has to be warm so I’m going to do that in the microwave, you can do the sugar while I’m doing that, okay?”

“Yeah! How many?” 

“It says a cup and a half so...” he gauged the smaller cup clutched in the girl’s tiny hands, “do you think you can measure out three cups of sugar?”

“I can do it!” Morgan said, plunging her cup deep into the sugar.

Peter smiled and shook his head at her enthusiasm as he chopped the butter into a bowl and put it in the microwave. While his back was turned he heard the quiet  shhh of sugar raining onto the counter, followed by a serious little voice counting, “oooone,”

He laughed quietly to himself as he watched. Morgan’s brow furrowed in the same way as Pepper’s did when she was working, and her tongue peeked out the corner of her mouth just like Tony denied his did. She was the perfect combination of the two, and Peter felt privileged to be such a present part of her life. To watch her learn, to watch her grow.

To watch her drop a full cup of sugar to the ground, sending it clattering and white granules cascading across the floor. 

Morgan looked up at Peter with wide eyes, “Oopsie,”

“‘Oopsie’ is about right, there’s sugar everywhere!” Peter said dramatically, unable to keep the amusement from his face.

“I dropped it,” Morgan said with a giggle.

“Yeah you did,” Peter laughed as he bent down to pick up the cup, “We better get this cleaned up before the floor gets all sticky,”

He put the cup in the sink and grabbed the broom to sweep up while Morgan stood on the stool, eyeing the floor as though it were made of lava. 

Once the floor was cleared up, Peter wandered back over to the counter and glanced inside the bowl, “How many cups of sugar did you put in?”

Morgan glanced between the bowl and Peter before admitting, “I forgot,”

“That’s okay,” Peter said, wrapping an arm around her and squeezing her to his side, “we’ll put another cup in just to be sure, you can never have too much sugar!”

He passed her a clean cup and watched as she carefully, ever so carefully, scooped a fresh cup of sugar and tipped it into the bowl. 

“Good job!” Peter congratulated with a high five, “Now we’ve got to mix it together,”

“I can do it!” Morgan said excitedly as Peter retrieved the electric mixer from the cupboard. 

Peter looked between the girl, the mixer, and the contents of the bowl before suggesting, “Why don’t we do it together?”

“But I’m the chef,” said Morgan, with a slight frown.

“I know you are,” Peter soothed, “but this is a little heavy and I don’t want you to hurt yourself. I’m sure mommy helps with this bit normally, right,

Morgan considered this, “She does. Okay Petey, you can help, but I’m still the chef,”

“Of course,” Peter agreed, “ready?”

With Peter’s steadier and stronger hand at the helm, the mixing process was relatively smooth. A little mess was made, but it had nothing over the previous messes and was quickly fixed. 

Next was the egg, which Morgan cracked into the bowl with surprising accuracy, even if some of the shell also fell in. Peter sloshed in some vanilla as Morgan upended a bag of chocolate chips and the pair mixed it all together, with a wooden spoon this time. 

“I can’t wait to eat these cookies, they’re gonna be so good!” Peter said, eyeing the eggshells in the dough that didn’t quite look right. Not that Peter has ever made cookies before, but he was sure the dough wasn’t supposed to crumble so much as they transferred them onto the baking sheet.

“They’re gonna be the best cookies ever!” Morgan declared, jumping excitedly on the the stool.

Peter grabbed her around the middle with one arm before she could fall and swung her around, her shrill giggles filling the room. He laughed and put her down, but she grabbed his arm.

“Again! Again!” 

“Not right now, we’ve gotta get these cookies in the oven!” Peter reminded.

“Oh yeah. I can do it!” Morgan reached for the baking tray, but Peter intercepted.

“Ah, ah! We don’t grab the tray in case it’s hot,”

“Sorry Petey,” said Morgan.

“It’s okay, Morganite. But I’ll do this bit because the oven is hot and we don’t want you to hurt yourself,”

“Okay,” Morgan agreed, but watched closely at Peter’s elbow as he slid the tray into the oven and set the timer.

“Right, we have ten minutes until the cookies are ready, why don’t we have a drawing contest?” Peter suggested.

“Yeah! I’ll get the paper!” Morgan flew from the room. 

Peter laughed fondly, marvelling in her childlike ability to find excitement in absolutely everything. She returned seconds later laden with paper and a pencil case bulging with pens, pencils and markers which she dropped onto the table.

Peter sat down opposite as she divided up the stationary, “So what are we drawing?”

“Ummm...... draw the best Iron Man,” Morgan decided, before grabbing a marker and getting to work.

Picking his own pens, Peter also got to work. Despite knowing all of the suits in great detail (and Iron Man often being topic of choice for drawing contests) Peter kept his drawing very vague and blocky - he did have to lose after all.

For a short while the only sounds were the scratching of pens on paper, the concentrating hums Morgan was making and the ticking of the timer. Beyond the walls the gentle flowing of the lake, tweeting of the birds, and rustle of the wind, making the whole environment peaceful and serene. Peter loved living in Queens, but he did envy Tony the quiet of his new life. 

The noise was interrupted simultaneously by the ringing of the timer, and Morgan holding her drawing aloft, yelling, “Finished!”

“Perfect timing!” Peter said as he stood to turn the oven off, “Let me see,”

Morgan handed the paper to Peter, “Iron Man!”

Peter gasped loudly, “Wow! That is so cool! Wait, what’s that he’s holding?”

“A cheeseburger ‘cause they’re his favourite!” said Morgan, beaming.

“They sure are,” Peter agreed, remembering all the times he and Tony had them after a hard mission or a long workshop session.

“They’re my favourite too, can we have them for dinner Petey? Please, please?”

“We’ll see, we have to get these cookies out first,”

Peter pulled on the oven gloves and opened the door. He was greeted by a waft of warm steam before his vision cleared and he grabbed the tray out and onto the side. For a moment the pair only stared at it, before Morgan giggled.

“We made one big cookie!”

Sure enough the round tray was completely covered by the cookie dough, which had spread and merged like, Peter thought, that silver stuff in those really old Terminator movies. 

“We can break it up once it’s cooled down,” Peter said with a laugh of his own.

He grabbed a cooling rack and a spatula, intending to slide the cookie out of the tray but it had gripped a little firmly, and the gentle ease became much more of a hard chisel. The resulting force caused the cookie to crumble, pieces and chunks showering onto the counter. 

“Oh,” summarised Peter.

“Oopsie,” said Morgan, face falling. She grabbed a small chunk and ate it, smile returning brightly to her face, “Still yummy, Petey!”

Relief washed through Peter as Morgan offered him a little piece of cookie. It was a little crunchier than it perhaps should have been, but she was right, it did still taste good. Seeing that the cooling rack was a waste of time, Peter grabbed a box from the cupboard and tipped the cookie into it. 

“Once these have cooled down we can share them with mommy and daddy after dinner, how does that sound?”

“Yeah! After cheeseburgers,” Morgan said determinedly.

“After cheeseburgers,” Peter repeated.

He took out his phone and sent a text;

_“Could you grab some cheeseburgers on the way home?”_

He hadn’t even put his phone away when the response came;

_“You read my mind kid”_

Peter smiled, pocketed his phone. He put together a snack and a drink for Morgan and sent her to watch cartoons, then the clean up operation began. 

He washed and dried the utensils, leaving the baking tray to soak a little longer as he wiped and tidied the counters. Even though he’d swept up the sugar earlier Peter still mopped it, worried about insects getting in. 

Once Peter was satisfied with the cleanliness of the kitchen, he joined Morgan on the couch. Only ten minutes later and they were both sound asleep. 

* * *

Peter’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the front door opening. He pulled the sleeping Morgan closer to his side as he listened intently, ready to grab her up and escape through the nearest window. 

His shoulders slumped and his heart rate slowed at the sound of Tony’s voice and the smell of fast food wafting through the house. 

Peter rubbed his eyes tiredly as Tony and Pepper walked into the living room. 

“Aww look at these two, sleeping happily and clearly completely fine,” Pepper said pointedly to Tony.

“Never thought otherwise,” Tony blatantly lied, unbagging the burgers and fries onto the table.

“She’s worn out, I hope she was good,” Pepper said softly. 

“She was,” Peter reassured as the girl in question began to rouse at the voices around her.

“Hey baby girl,” Pepper cooed.

“Mommy!” Morgan exclaimed, suddenly awake. She jumped up and claimed a hug from Pepper before rushing across to Tony, “Daddy!

“Hey Morguna!” Tony swept her up into his arms, “Did you have fun with Petey today?”

“Yeah! We played cars and we watched SpongeBob, and we baked cookies!”

“Oh you did?” Tony asked, “Sounds like a big day. I bet you’re hungry, I hope cheeseburgers are gonna hit the spot,”

“Yeah! Thank you daddy!”

“You’re welcome squirt, now let’s dig in, I’m starved,” Tony joked.

After dinner, Tony sat back in his chair and rubbed his stomach, “I’m full, but I left just enough room for a cookie. You guys know where I could get one?”

“I can get it!” Morgan exclaimed, jumping down from the table and rushing to the kitchen. 

“I should warn you know,” Peter said quietly, “they’re not exactly cookies,”

Tony and Pepper wore matching frowns of cautious curiosity but neither could ask before Morgan returned with the box.

“We tried to bake cookies but it turned into one giant cookie and then into lots of little cookies!” Morgan explained with a giggle. 

Understanding dawned on Pepper’s face as she took the box from her daughter and looked inside, “Well I’m sure they still taste amazing, good job guys,”

“I made them all by myself! And Petey helped,” Morgan beamed proudly.

“Well they look amazing, and I have an idea for these cookies to make them ever better,”

She left the room and returned a short while later with four bowls. In each one was a helping of vanilla ice cream with chunks of cookie mixed in, much to everyone’s delight.

“Yay! This is the best day ever!” Morgan declared, and if the warm feeling surging through Peter was anything to go by, it was his best day ever too.

* * *

Later, after a sleepy Morgan had been put to bed, the others sat together in the living room.

“Thank you so much for watching Morgan today, Peter,” said Pepper.

“It’s no trouble. Really. We had a great time,”

“I have to say,” Tony said before taking a sip of his soda, “for a moment there I was worried you’d inherited your aunt’s cooking skills, but you pulled through and made something edible. I won’t call it a cookie, but it was definitely food,”

Pepper threw him a look but Peter only snickered.

“Actually, Morgan wasn’t wrong when she said she did it herself. I actually only helped here and there,”

Pepper blinked, “You let Morgan do everything?”

“Not the oven stuff!” Peter corrected, “I did all that stuff. But she did all the measuring and the mixing,”

“By herself?” Pepper asked, “But the kitchen’s immaculate,”

“I cleaned up afterwards. She said she wanted to be the chef and you always said that she makes the sweets in the Spidey tin,”

Pepper laughed, “That’s because she’s normally in the room when I say it. She does a lot of baking but it’s heavily supervised,”

“Oh,” said Peter. It actually made a lot of sense now that he thought about it. “Oh well, she had a lot of fun, and it didn’t taste too bad so it all worked out in the end,”

“That it did,” Tony agreed.

And for all that Morgan wasn’t a natural born chef Peter did have a lot of fun, and he found himself looking forward to the next time they could bake together.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact! The nickname Peter gives Morgan, Morganite, is a gem stone that according to most websites apparently ‘cleanses the emotional body of stress and anxiety, old wounds and hidden traumas, and enkindles lightness within the spirit, as if a burden has been lifted’ and if that isn’t Morgan Stark I don’t know what is 
> 
> On a separate note, I got the hand washing song from Google images lol


End file.
